jE 449 
Copy 1 



fiQ^tasntss aulj i\t '§x\lpt: 



DISCOURSE 



PREACHED IN THE FIRST CHURCH, DORCHESTER, 



On Sunpay, Sept. 30, 1855, 



/ 

BY NATHANIEL HALL. 



BOSTON: 
CROSBY, NICHOLS, AND COMPANY, 

111, ^yASHINGTON STREET. 

1855. 



^ 



3li(jMco)tsncss itn^ i\n |itlptt 



DISCOURSE 



PREACHED IN THE FIRST CHURCH, DORCHESTER, 



On Sunday, Sept. 30, 1855. 



/ 

" y 

BY NATHANIEL HALL. 



/ 

BOSTON: 

CROSBY, NICHOLS, AND COMPANY, 

111, Washington Street. 

1855. 






V 






BOSTON: 

printeb by john wilsox and son, 

22, School Street. 



4 



DORCSESTEB) Oct. 2, 1865. 
Rev. N. Hall. 

Dear Sir, — We, the undersigned, members of the First Parish in 
Dorchester, fully responding to the Christian sentiments expressed in your 
sermon of Sunday morning, Sept. 30, request, in behalf of ourselves and 
many others, a copy for the press, believing its publication will aid the cause 
for -which you have so manfully contended ; viz., the independence of the 
ptdpit. 



Very truly yours. 



William Pope, jun. 
John G. Nazro. 
Thomas Groom. 
Elisha T. LoniNG. 
Daniel Denny. 
Samvel Doavnek. 
Flavel :Moseley. 



DoRCHXSTEE, Oct. 3, 1855. 



Gentlemen, 

I have received your communication, containing a request for a 
copy of my sermon, of last Sunday morning, for publication. Confiding in 
your judgment, that its publication may serve, in some measure, a cause I 
have much at heart, I place its manuscript at your disposal. Its personal 
allusions the dictates of good taste would lead me to withhold from the 
public eye; but considerations, which I deem not unworthy, prevail with 
me to do otherwise. 

With respect and esteem, yours, 

Nathl. Hall. 

To Messrs. Wiluam Pope, jun., 

John G. Nazeo, and others. 



DISCOURSE. 



Psalm xl. 9 : — "I have preached righteousness in the great 

CONGREGATION." 

So spake the royal Hebrew, — expressing thus the 
chief theme and theatre of the minister of religion in 
all ages and lands. He is to preach " righteousness." 
He is to preach it " in the great congregation." The 
subject is given him as that pre-eminently of his 
sphere ; his sphere, for the sake pre-eminently of the 
subject. He stands as the servant of a righteous God, 
in the midst of an unrighteous world ; and his mission 
is, first and foremost, to show the one its departure 
from the other, — the evil and the guilt of it, — and 
to persuade to repentance and return. Let the pulpit 
regard its purpose as less than this, and by what could 
it justify its existence'? Let it preach unrighteous- 
ness ; or, what is in effect the same, let it be silent 
before the practised unrighteousness in the life around 
it ; the frauds and inhumanities ; the individual, the 



6 



social, the legalized injustice ; the ways and instances 
innumerable in which men are violating the plainest 
of God's commandments, treasuring up thereby, for 
and within themselves, though they know it not, 
in a growing obliquity and depravity of the moral 
nature, a deeper evil than they can inflict on others : 
let it see all this, see it in the light of that righteous 
law intrusted to it to proclaim, and give no audible 
report of what it sees, pass no judgment, utter no 
protest ; or let it proclaim the law in its abstract- 
ness only, refraining from that direct and especial 
application of it which alone can reach the evil and 
amend the wrong, — and what claim would it have 
on men's respect or toleration ? nay, what less would 
it be, in the sight of Heaven and all holy men, than 
an impertinence and an offence 1 If the minister of 
religion cannot adopt the asseveration of the text, in 
its fullest and most uncompromising sense, as expres- 
sive at least of his determination and endeavor, he 
had better find for himself, forthwith, another occupa- 
tion, where his dishonesty will be less mischievous. 
" I am to preach righteousness," do his most solemn 
obligations compel him to affirm. "It is imperative 
upon me. Whatever is questionable, this is not. I 
am to soothe the sorrowing, to encourage the disheart- 
ened, to strengthen the wavering, to re-assure the 
doubting, to meet and minister to the various needs 
of the human spirit ; I am to exhort to gentleness, 



patience, submission, trust, — each passive virtue, 
each spiritual affection, each lovely grace; I am to 
show forth the love and mercy of the infinite Father, 
the hopes and promises that irradiate his word ; this, 
and more: but with all, and as the beginning and 
end of all, I am to preach righteousness. I am to set 
forth that eternal law which conscience enforces in 
every breast ; which inheres in the nature of God ; and 
by which he will judge, and is continually judging, 
the universe of souls. I am to show — not vaguely, 
but clearly — the actual violations of it ; not those 
of another place and period, but those of the living 
world around me." 

Are there any limitations to the obligation thus 
affirmed 1 any considerations which excuse a minister 
of religion from preaching righteousness *? -which jus- 
tify him in withholding his condemning protest — not 
his, but the Being's whom he serves — against the 
iniquity he sees around him 1 Where and what are 
they ? Will any one dare to bring them — except 
under cover of some specious sophism — from the 
regions of the politic, the prudential, the expedient "? 
Will any one suggest that a distinction is to be 
observed by the pulpit, in this regard, between the 
several forms of unrighteousness around it, and that 
certain some are to be exempted from the directness 
of its rebuke ] those, for instance, which have connec- 
tion with the State, which are under the protection of 



8 



law, which have the sanction of the multitude, which 
are upholden by the wealth and station of society, 
which favor the increase of a material prosperity, 
which have become associated with political organiza- 
tions, which are an exciting and disagreeable topic to 
some of a congregation. Will any one aver, that 
these considerations, one or all, constitute a reason, 
valid and worthy, for ignoring the existence, or pal- 
liating the enormity, of the unrighteousness to which 
they pertain 1 

But let us come directly to the point we have all in 
mind. Here, within the national domain, is a large 
number of our fellow-beings forcibly withheld from 
the exercise and enjoyment of some of the dearest and 
most sacred of human rights, — rights bestowed by 
their Creator, and thus naturally and inalienably 
theirs, — and which we, as a people, have confessed 
to be so, on the forefront of the document which pro- 
claims our nationality ; withheld, in and by this fact, 
from all power to realize any worthy development of 
their intelligent and immortal natures, any worthy 
enjoyment and use of life ; held and regarded and used 
as brute property, as human merchandise, as living 
mechanism ; subjected, without the means of resistance 
or redress, to the capricious tempers, the excited pas- 
sions, the selfish and irresponsible wills, of those that 
claim them ; degraded to the rank of plantation 
" stock," and valued and used as such for other and 



viler purposes than labor ; with no accorded right to 
call themselves their own; with no power to make 
good their claim to the breathing and pulsing, the 
thinking and feeling, life which God has given them ; 
with nothing that deserves the name of home ; pub- 
licly bought and sold, and separated one from another 
in utter disregard of the ties of nature and affection. 
Here is no exaggerated picture, but a calm and sober 
statement of what all must admit as facts. Am I told 
of here and there exceptions to its general truth ; 
of alleviations, of compensations, through the huma- 
nity of man, and the overrulings of a gracious Provi- 
dence '? Of course there are these ; we should know 
there were beforehand ; for everywhere are human 
hearts that soften towards their kind, and God has 
gilded every lot with some gleams of brightness and 
of hope. But, substantially, the statement is one of 
facts ; and of facts not which incidentally adhere to 
the system, but which essentially inhere within it, — 
its necessary and inseparable constituents. 

I heap upon the system no condemnatory epithets. 
I refrain from all intensified expression of my own 
deep abhorrence of it. I simply put it to your own 
moral judgments, whether it be, or not, a system of 
unrighteousness ; whether it be, or not, in violation of 
God's law and Christ's commandments. And, further- 
more, I ask, why, in the name of all that is just and 
sacred, the pulpit should not declare it such, and echo 



10 



alike Heaven's verdict and the world's, — why it 
should not preach ^'■righteousness,'' directly and dis- 
tinctly, to the upholders of it, to the connivers at it, 
to the apologists for it, — ay, preach it " in the great 
congregation." 

There are answers to this question ; I hear them 
all around me ; and circumstances, of which you are 
all aware, authorize, if they do not demand of, me to 
investigate before you their claim to our regard. I 
shall do it freely, but not, I trust, uncandidly ; and 
I shall adduce, let me say, such only as have recently 
been addressed to me personally, and by implication 
reproachfully, by some among you. 

It is said, and continually and everywhere reite- 
rated, " The subject is a political one ; and, as such, 
should be excluded from the pulpit." Would it not 
be better, because truer, to say, it is a great moral and 
religious subject, having political bearings and rela- 
tions % The system of American slavery, as has now 
been shown, is most eminently and emphatically an 
unrighteous one ; a direct infraction of the plainest 
commandments of the Almighty ; a manifest violation 
of the precepts and spirit of the religion of Jesus ; the 
offspring of selfish and sordid lusts, and the parent 
of evils, the least in whose lengthened train are those 
which fall upon the physical and dying man, — evils 
which attach to the moral and immortal nature, as 



11 



experienced both by its helpless victims and their 
lordly claimants. And, being this, its discussion 
belongs, most strictly and legitimately, to the pulpit, 
— yea, is bound upon it by Heaven-woven obligations. 
Say, if you will, that, in its political connections, it is 
unwise for the pulpit to attempt the treatment of it. 
It is saying what no one, so far as I know, is at all 
disposed, by word or practice, to contradict. What- 
ever may be true of other pulpits, I can speak confi- 
dently at least of one. And it becomes me to affirm, 
that in this^ by its present occupant, however differ- 
ent an excited mind may apprehend the fact to be, 
the subject has ever been discussed in its broadest 
ground, with a direct reference of it to the great law 
of equity and mercy. All, I suppose, agree that politi- 
cal preaching — that which takes sides with a political 
party as such, and advocates its measures and course 
on political grounds and considerations — is to be 
deprecated and condemned. All agree that the 
preacher has a separate and peculiar, a higher and 
holier, work ; namely, the enunciation and enforce- 
ment of eternal principles, with a showing forth of 
their practical relations to individuals and communi- 
ties. But if, in doing this, it so happen that his 
views are coincident with those of a party, is he justly 
chargeable with preaching " politics," in any opprobri- 
ous and unworthy sense ? Would to God the prin- 
ciples and policy of political parties were so in unison 



12 



with the absolute right, that, in preaching the latter, 
one might seem to be pleading for the former ! No : 
a false issue is presented, ignorantly or knowingly, 
with regard to this matter. The issue is not, whether 
political preaching is bad and wrong ; whether party 
spirit in the pulpit, in relation to this as to every 
other subject, is bad and wrong. There is no contro- 
versy here. But this is the issue : whether the preach- 
ing of the pulpit is to have nothing to do with a great 
moral and religious subject, because it has come to 
have political bearings and associations. In other 
words, Is the preacher to ignore this evil of which we 
speak, — this crime against humanity and God ; to go 
on, from month to month and year to year, as though 
it were not ; to stand in his place, and see its porten- 
tous cloud spreading and darkening on his country's 
sky, with the rumble of distant thunder in its deepening 
folds ; to see increasing millions — those whom God 
loves, those for whom Christ died — robbed by it of 
their birthright, neglected, despised, degraded ; to see 
its corrupting influence upon those afar who cherish 
and those around who extenuate and defend it, — the 
gradual but sure debauchment of the public con- 
science, — the suppression in its favor, even in youth- 
ful breasts, of the holy instincts of freedom and the 
dear sympathies of humanity ; to see the kingdom of 
heaven hindered in its advancement, more than by 
aught else, by its presence and power, — is he to see 



13 



all this, — to see it with God's open word before him, 
and his secret voice within, — and keep all unspoken 
their united ~ condemnation 1 This^ friends, is the 
question — - stripped of its sophisms, seen in its naked- 
ness — which circumstances have thrust between us ; 
this, and this only. Say, merely, that the preacher 
should not be continually presenting the topic in 
question, — should not give it ])rominence among his 
selected topics: it is assented to. Say, further, that 
he should never present it with a view to political and 
party ends, — never with the spirit and tone of a par- 
tisan : it is assented to. But say that he should never 
present it at all ; that it should be for him an inter- 
dicted topic : it is denied. The assertion is most pre- 
posterous. It is to be instantly and earnestly repelled. 
I marvel at the presumption that proposes the exclu- 
sion of this subject from the pulpit and the church, 
and its surrender to the politician and to party. Yet 
more do I marvel that the pulpit and the church, 
with any living sense of their responsibilities, should 
ever have consented to such surrender ; as, in in- 
stances not a few, they have, and, in so doing, been 
manifestly recreant to their trust. If it may be so 
with this evil and wrong, then why not with any and 
every other % feeding, though they may be, on the 
very vitals of the community, and carrying wretched- 
ness and degradation to uncounted homes. They, too, 
because legislation may have taken them u]), and par- 



14 



ties been formed in relation to them, may be barred 
out from the circle of permitted topics, and Religion 
be left to look out upon them from her sacred places, 
and be dumb before them, — ay, give them the ap- 
proval Avhich silence, by implication, is. The very 
obvious fallacy which runs through much that is said 
and written about politics in the pulpit, in the con- 
nection spoken of, is the assumption that the subject 
of slavery is primarily and exclusively a political one, 
and that its discussion in the pulpit must necessarily 
be on party grounds and in a party spirit. Both of 
these assumptions being false, the conclusions drawn 
from them are therefore forceless. And, apart from 
all other considerations, one is disposed to but little 
respect for this outcry of " political preaching," at 
every assertion of the unrighteousness of our country's 
cherished institution, when he sees how many of those 
most forward to raise it are quite forgetful to do so 
in the hearing of preaching equally obnoxious to the 
appellation, as regards the subject-matter of it, be- 
sides being inhuman and atheistic, — the preaching, 
namely, that apologizes for this instituted oppression, 
and elevates its enactments above the statutes of the 
Almighty. 

Again, it is said, " The subject should be excluded 
from the pulpit because it is an exciting one : it hurts 
people's feelings ; it stirs bad blood ; it sets aflame 
the passions of the caucus-room and the polls. Men 



15 



enter the church in a pleasant, amiable mood, with 
all their good feelings uppermost, and leave it irritated 
and enraged." Here is, I allow, a most lamentable 
result, more especially so as viewed in connection 
with its cause. That a protest against unrighteous- 
ness, that a plea for humanity, should be thus produc- 
tive, is the saddest part of it. But the result is actual ; 
and the question is, what sort and measure of regard 
the pulpit is to have for it. Is it so far to consult 
human weakness and waywardness in the selection of 
its topics as to refrain from the discussion of those, 
whatever their intrinsic claim to attention and regard, 
which are supposed to be exciting and offensive to a 
portion of its hearers 1 Where would the acceptance 
of such a proposition take us ? What, adopting it, 
would the pulpit hel Apply it to the case in ques- 
tion ; and tell me, is it a reason, which God and con- 
science accept, for being silent in the presence of this 
gigantic wrong, that all rebukeful mention of it dis- 
turbs and angers a few, or many, of a congregation? 
May not the state of things thus indicated have come 
to exist through that very negligence on the part of 
the pulpit for whose continuance it is made a plea 1 

It would seem the thought of some, that the 
preacher is responsible for the ill temper thus ex- 
cited ; as if he created it, — as if he put it within 
the heart. But was it not all there, in its elements, 
before I Has he done aught but show it forth, — but 



16 



bring it to the birth 1 Beneath that bland and placid 
surface lay coiled those ugly passions, slumbering and 
silent, which, at the preacher's word, awoke, and 
forthwith spake in their vernacular. What great 
gain were it, if they had been allowed to slumber on, 
and their possessors had gone to their homes, uncon- 
scious of their presence, with unwarranted self-gratu- 
lation*? The pity is that they are there, not that 
they were put into temporary activity. TJiat, for its 
self-revelation, may prove a blessing. But the preach- 
er, I hold, is not to concern himself about effects. 
They are not his guide to duty. He is a servant of 
the truth; and his foremost obligation, having pre- 
pared himself through its own consecrating influence, 
is to bear witness to it, — alike to willing and unwill- 
ing ears, to receptive and repellent hearts. He has 
a word given him, if he be a living man, which he 
must speak ; in the exercise, of course, of a thought- 
ful wisdom as to times and modes. But speak it he 
must, whether men hear, or whether they forbear. 
Do you think the great Teacher of Nazareth withheld 
the truth that was given him because there were 
those in hearing whom it offended ■? On the contrary, 
I read that he drove men from his presence by his 
hated words ; in the excitement of their wrath, seek- 
ing how they might destroy him. And where and 
what had we been, spiritually, if that holy brother- 
hood in the past, fellow-laborers with him for a 



17 



world's redemption, — apostles, confessors, reformers, 
— had retained the truth intrusted to them until no 
prejudice, and no selfishness, and no evil heart of 
unbelief, had offered it resistance 1 until, like the 
whispering breezes of a summer's evening, it had ruf- 
fled not a feather of self-complacency or self-love 1 
And, if we will look at effects, let us look at all. Let 
us consider that there are those who gladly welcome 
what to others is offensive ; those who are needing its 
utterance, — for the confirmation of a previous con- 
viction, or the removal of a lingering distrust, or the 
awakening of a holier interest, or the incitement to a 
neglected duty, with regard to it. 

But it is further said, " The introduction of this 
subject into the pulpit destroys the peace and har- 
mony of a society ; fomenting discords and animosities 
between its members, and ill feelings and distrusts 
towards its minister ; hindering thus his influence, 
and lessening his usefulness." Admitting the truth 
of this, what, I ask, is a minister to do 1 With con- 
victions which he cannot stifle in relation to slavery, 
— seeing, feeling its inherent wrongfulness and its 
resulting evils, — what is he to do 1 Regard policy 1 
take counsel of expediency 1 and give or withhold his 
convictions as these — blind guides that they are — 
shall seem to direct him 1 Or, purging himself of all 
personal and worldly aims ; casting himself, in humble 
confidence, — himself and all his interests, — upon a 



18 



spiritual Providence, shall he speak as God in that 
same hour shall teach him '? assured, that, whatever 
the immediate effects, none other than good can ulti- 
mately ensue. Harmony in a parish is a, good thing. 
But its value depends upon its quality, — upon the 
basis on which it rests. That harmony, methinks, is 
of but little worth whose continuance is conditioned 
upon the minister's repressing in aught his honest 
convictions, — which a manly, outspoken word can 
break. At any rate, the minister has a higher Avork 
than to keep peace. He was not ordained for that. 
He is to deal with truth. If the truth agitate, let it 
agitate. Agitation is not the worst of conditions. 
Nature teaches us better when she sends down her 
storms upon the stagnant peacefulness of her waters. 
Agitation is often a process, and the only possible 
one, in the moral as in the natural world, to purifica- 
tion; and the only peace the pulpit has a right to 
seek, as a specific aim, is that which comes of purity. 
" First pure, then peaceable." And as to a minister's 
influence being hindered by his faithfulness, I believe 
it not. It is a suggestion of the tempter. By a " Get 
thee behind me, Satan ! " would I put it by. I believe 
in a Providence ; I believe in man, and that, in the 
secret depths of each human soul, there is a respect 
for the honest and faithful man, however much his 
honesty and faithfulness may cause ofifence. Clouds 
of prejudice may, for a time, surround him, and the 



19 



sun of his influence seem hopelessly obscured; but 
sooner or later, while he is living or when he has 
gone, it shall again break forth, and all the brighter 
for its temporary eclipse. 

Again, it is asked, "What good can the pulpit 
promise itself from a discussion of this subject % The 
harm is evident. Where is the good % " And where 
is it ? I do not know ; I do not care to know. Ask 
Him who formed the soul for truth, to find therein its 
sustenance and salvation, and whose kingdom is to 
come in the world only through his blessing upon the 
spoken and the manifested truth. Ask him who " for 
this end was born, and for this cause came into the 
world, that he might bear witness to the truth," and 
who bore witness to it against scoff and sneer, the 
frown of power and the threatening of hate, in 
the sublime faith that it would win for itself, at 
length, a universal triumph. Ask the thousands 
who, in a like faith, have lived and died for it, — lived 
in persecution, died in martyrdom ; scattering as they 
went, on the world's bleak waysides, its celestial seed, 
to spring and bloom above their graves. O friends ! 
if we really believed that that kingdom of God for 
which we pray were indeed to come only through the 
fidelity of individual man, we should not ask, of 
the simplest word, from the humblest lips, in the 
narrowest sphere, spoken from the fulness of a loyal 
heart, " What good will it do X " 



20 



Again, it is said, " The evil you thus force on our 
attention, however great, is a distant one. What have 
we to do with it 1 How can we reach it "? Surely, 
there are evils enough that are near, and, as such, 
more nearly concern us. Why will not the pulpit 
keep itself to these ? " The evil is distant as an insti- 
tutional existence ; but, as an influence and a power, 
is it not all around us '? Yea, is it not enthroned as 
such in our republic, and feared and flattered and 
fallen before and worshipped, by tens of thousands, in 
every part of it ? — What have we to do with it 1 
Alas ! it has much to do with us. But, were it not 
so, the question is heartless, is heathenish. There is 
no warmth in it of Christian faith or love. Have we 
not learned that the oppressed through all the world 
have claims upon us to the extent of our power to 
help them '? claims, at least, for our sympathy, — the 
word, the plea, the prayer, which it shall dictate 1 — 
How can we reach if? Through the force of a 
Christianized public sentiment, in the want of which 
alone it has extension and existence, — a public senti- 
ment which each individual helps to form. — Are there 
not evils nearer 1 Yes : and let the pulpit be faithful 
also ,with them as with this. 

But it is said, " There is a great diversity of opinion 
in relation to this subject — as there always has been, 
and always will be — among those equally qualified 
every way to judge of it. How presumptuous in 



21 



the pulpit to dogmatize about it, — to think to throw 
any new light upon it, — to undertake to discuss what 
the most eminent statesmen have differed about ! " 
There is a fallacy here, which is easily exposed. What 
does the pulpit undertake to discuss ? Not the ways 
of getting rid of slavery, about which men differ ; 
but the moral character of the system itself, about 
which, essentially, they agree, — and most earnest de- 
nunciations of which have come from some of those 
very statesmen, born and living in the midst of it. 
The charge against the pulpit of a dogmatic utterance 
of its opinions in the face of those who have an equal 
right to theirs, and are as competent to form them, 
has no meaning. The pulpit has no " opinions " on 
the subject It but enunciates plain and incontro- 
vertible truths and universally-admitted principles. 
Thank God ! among all that is uncertain, there are 
some things sure, which one can no more doubt than 
his own existence ; and, among them, this, — and it is 
all we care to oppose to slavery, — that there is a 
righteous God, and that his will and law is right- 
eousness. 

But here it is urged, " If the pulpit has nothing to 
propose in the way of methods for abolishing slavery, 
why discuss it at all '? We are all right in sentiment 
with regard to it. We all believe, that, abstractly and 
in principle, it is wrong. We want to know what to 
do. When the pulpit can tell us this, it may, with 



22 



some reason, speak on the subject." Would that the 
almost universal profession of antislavery sentiment 
might be more substantiated by deeds ! though the 
profession is worth something, as a hopeful sign and 
indication. But who can observe the course of politi- 
cal parties, and the tone of the secular press, without 
feeling that this community — even this — needs yet 
to be baptized into the true spirit of this reform ? 
Men ask for methods. They know, in their secret 
hearts, that they are not ready to use them if they 
were proposed ; they are not, at heart and in princi- 
ple, — as their doings testify, — with the cause they 
have nominally espoused ; they have not sworn fealty 
to it before high Heaven, to be maintained at what- 
ever sacrifice ; they love money more ; they love 
distinction more; they love social position more. 
What comes of the indignant feeling that flames 
forth at each fresh outrage of the slave power 1 
What ^ Words unbacked by deeds, vows that never 
see fulfilment. Could it be, if the feeling were based 
in principle ? if the cause had been religiously em- 
braced'? And is it so, that, for the sake of the 
material prosperity it helps to foster, this Christian 
community is consenting to the continuance and 
growth of this enthroned oppression 1 consenting — 
yes — to crucify afresh the Savioiu: in the person of 
the slave 1 — Tell us what to do 'i Learn to sympa- 
thize with the oppressed ; learn to hate oppression ; 



23 



renew within you a declining love of freedom and 
appreciation of its worth ; study the first principles, 
drink into the spirit, of the religion of Christ ; cherish 
a reverence and love of righteousness, — until you 
shall have some adequate and feeling apprehension — 
which you have not now — of the essential character 
of this accursed system, and have a will for its re- 
moval. " Where there's a will, there's a way." Let 
statesmen discuss modes and methods : the pulpit 
has enough to do to create the feeling that would 
employ them. 

Once more, it is urged, " If a minister feels that he 
must speak on this subject, let him do it elsewhere 
than in the pulpit. Other places are open to him. 
Why insist upon that 1 " Because the minister of 
religion has the pulpit as peculiarly his sphere of 
action and influence. Whatever within him is plead- 
ing for utterance, as a matter of right and of duty, 
should have utterance there. Moreover, the pulpit 
stands before the community as the visible representa- 
tive, the public organ, the accredited voice, of its reli- 
gion. Should it fail of bearing testimony, openly and 
unequivocally, against this wrong, what would be the 
not unauthorized inference from such failure, — the 
natural language of it ^ Would it not be, that reli- 
gion, as such, had no rebuke for it, — had nothing to 
do with if? No : the minister of religion is not only 



24 



to preach " righteousness ; " he is to preach it " in 
the great congregation." 



I cannot close this akeady too protracted discourse 
without a more direct allusion to that state of things 
amons: us which called it forth. After what has 
occurred within the last few weeks, and in the pecu- 
liar and trying position in which I have thereby been 
placed, I could not feel it right or well to be longer 
silent with regard to it. Knowing that I was misun- 
derstood, or at least misrepresented ; that feelings of 
displeasure and disapproval were cherished on the part 
of many of you towards me, — feelings whose expres- 
sion has come to me in no scanty measure or equivo- 
cal tone ; and that a barrier was thus interposed, here 
and elsewhere, to my access to your hearts, to my 
attempts at usefulness, — I felt that, in justice to 
myself, and^ yet more to a committed trust, I was 
bound to speak. Yet when to speak, and how, it has 
been most difficult for me to decide. Discarding, by 
an earnest effort, all personal considerations ; putting 
a guard where I felt my weakness lay, — I have 
endeavored to yield myself to a higher than human 
guidance. And again and again, even at the approach 
of each returning sabbath, has a restraining sugges- 
tion prevented the doing of what I now have 
done. 



25 



Friends! as I look back to the time, not four 
months ago, when I returned among you from a long 
absence, and think how all was kindness and cor- 
diality towards me, with not a whisper of disaffection 
from any quarter, and then contrast with it your pre- 
sent feelings, as indicated by the facts to which I have 
alluded, I am constrained to ask before you, What 
have I done 1 leaving it with yourselves to answer, as 
I leave ^vith you also, and most confidingly, the judg- 
ment, whether the offence was deserving its visitation. 
I speak in no spirit of complaint. I come not to 
whine myself into your compassion, nor even to seek 
the return of a departed popularity. Let it be as it 
is. Having nothing to regret, but much to congra- 
tulate myself for, in what I have done, I cheerfully 
accept its consequences. Had I seen those conse- 
quences beforehand, — yea, had all that is adverse in 
them been aggravated to my foresight in a tenfold 
measure, — I should have done the same. 

An impression, I learn, exists with some of you, 
that, in allowing the antislavery enterprise to find 
continued advocacy in this pulpit, I have been untrue 
to some expressions in the sermon at my return, — 
expressions which were understood, most strangely, to 
involve a confession of regret at my past course in 
relation to this enterprise, and the avowal of a pur- 
pose to avoid its repetition. I desire to say, that not 
the slightest shadow of such an idea ever entered my 



26 



mind. No! No! Among the things in the past 
which I regret, and they are many, this, believe me, is 
not one. Among the resolutions with which I crossed 
anew the threshold of my work, there was none of 
desistance from the advocacy of this holy cause. Its 
summoning trump, heard long years ago, — heard, 
and, I bless God, heeded, — wakes still its echoes in 
my soul ; and, when I shall willingly be disobedient 
to it, may the earth miss me, and its befriending turf 
conceal me ! Circumstances require that I should be 
explicit in this matter. This, therefore, I desire to say, 
that I stand here in perfect freedom, or I stand not 
here at all ; and that, in the exercise of that freedom, 
among the subjects that will be introduced here is 
that of "righteousness," in its application to the 
great sin of the nation, — to American slavery. 

Friends ! let not a demanded plainness of utterance 
be deemed inconsistent with a due respect. Respect, 
be assured, I feel, as I look around on many a familiar 
face, many a manly and gentle spirit ; yea, more than 
respect, — a grateful and affectionate regard. The 
memories of the past are with me. But you would 
not, I am sure, desire, as you could not expect, that, 
through any personal regard, I should be untrue to 
myself Nor can I believe that it is the wish of most 
of you to have this pulpit other than a free one. The 
experience of the past forbids me. 

And now, one word more, a hopeful one, for that 



27 

cause which many of you, I know, though with dif- 
ferent degrees of feeling and different convictions of 
duty with regard to it, have truly at heart. Let us 
take courage in the assurance of its ultimate success. 
It is the cause of Christ and of God, and cannot fail. 
Does man think, by all his power, to restrain if? 
Let him first essay an easier task, and turn back, 
with his puny palm, the rushing waters of Niagara. 
Forces the most potential are enlisted in its behalf, — 
thought, sentiment, love, faith. It has an advocate in 
every generous breast, however prejudice and passion 
for a time may silence it. The literature of the age 
is in sympathy with it. The lyre of each noble poet 
is struck for it. Every exile that comes panting from 
the despotisms of the older world blesses 'it. The 
^ prayers of all the oppressed in all the earth go up 

for it. Heaven sends down to earth, and earth sends 
back to heaven, the prediction of its triumph. 



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